


Bewitching Precision

by Lucyemers



Series: Tallster Missing Scenes [1]
Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, M/M, Missing Scene, Shaving, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucyemers/pseuds/Lucyemers
Summary: "I'm just trying to shave." He turned back to the mirror, brush in hand and made another half-hearted attempt at lathering before picking up the razor.Caleb sat unceremoniously on the cot and took off his hat. “And how’s that going for you?”“Slowly, but I have it in hand.”“What you have in hand is a shaking feckin’ razor blade.”Missing Scene from Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot
Relationships: Caleb Brewster/Benjamin Tallmadge
Series: Tallster Missing Scenes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892392
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	Bewitching Precision

**Author's Note:**

> It's been quite a while since I have finished or posted anything. But I have fallen hard for this ship.  
> Many thanks to all the lovely people on the Turn Discord server for helping to rekindle my fannishness and especially to Apfelessig for beta reading and continued support and cheering me on. 
> 
> Stay tuned- my hope is to write a missing scene about these two for each episode.

It had been three days since Ben had been shot. They had removed the bullet relatively quickly once he had returned to camp and the wound was beginning to heal nicely with no trace of infection. But damned if it didn't hurt. 

Unfortunately he also had not shaved in three days and now he had worked up a sweat just lathering the soap. It didn't lather well at the best of times, much less with his slow, stiff movements. By the time he got the handle of the straight razor positioned between his fingers his hand was starting to shake at the exertion of holding his arm up to his cheek. He twisted on the stool angling his body so that he could rest his elbow on the table. This stilled the shaking but did nothing for the pain. He briefly considered shaving with the other hand and let out a frustrated laugh. He could only imagine what a mess that would be. For God’s sake this was a simple chore, not a military maneuver, just better to get on with it. He raised the blade to his face, his left hand pulling the skin of his right cheek taut, and he was met with a sticky resistance, the meager lather already having dried. 

He sighed. Anger and guilt welled up inside him. He was here. He was breathing. His biggest struggle was shaving when so many had not survived the blood bath he had been through not but three days earlier. His injury was minor and the effects of a blow that had left him passed out in the mud were beginning to recede. Truly he was loath to admit it, but he was fortunate to have been knocked unconscious to begin with-a mercy that had left him in the perfect position to make his escape from the battlefield. But he had been suffering from pain of conscience right along with the headaches. It was not a gentlemanly way to survive-by first feigning death like a possum and next by taking a soldier by surprise with a bayonet- a boy most surely many years his junior. 

And yet he was alive, and not ashamed to be so. Upon waking each morning since returning he’d swung his feet over the side of his cot and scarce known whether the lightheadedness he’d felt was due to injury or the sheer dizzying relief at being alive and being here. He was back with mornings and evenings and all the soothingly familiar and mundane tasks of the life of an officer- regulation and order to guide his every step. And here he was failing at one of the simplest of these: all officers will be expected to be shaven every three days at minimum. 

He set his jaw, set down the blade and returned to the bowl, wetting the gritty, dwindling cake of soap and turning to the brush only to find that it had rolled beneath the table. He pulled the stool back, knelt on the ground, retrieved it and promptly cracked his head underneath the table on his way back up, producing another wave of dizziness of the type he had assumed he was through with. He dropped back to the stool, holding his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, and heard the familiar sound of the tent flap being pulled aside. 

“Dammit”, he muttered to himself. This was humiliating. 

“And a lovely morning to you too!”

Ben grinned. Along with the familiar routine of camp life he had returned to this familiar voice and the teasing smile he could feel in it without looking up.

He felt Caleb’s hand on his uninjured shoulder as he looked up to meet his eyes, the teasing look still there but his voice tightening slightly with concern, “Hey, you alright, Ben?” and Ben hadn't meant to pause but in the space of time that he did Caleb was crouching in front of him, his other hand to his forehead for just a moment. "Not feverish are you?"

“No, I’m fine”, he was trying for a casualness that he didn’t feel. "I'm just trying to shave." He turned back to the mirror, brush in hand and made another half-hearted attempt at lathering before picking up the razor. 

Caleb sat unceremoniously on the cot and took off his hat. “And how’s that going for you?”

“Slowly, but I have it in hand.”

“What you have in hand is a shaking feckin’ razor blade.”

“It’s fine, Caleb.”

“Oh, is it?” Ben nearly jumped at the abrupt crunch of an apple. He did not answer. Once Caleb had the bit between his teeth it was fruitless to pull on the reins, he had learned this long ago. He didn’t have the energy to argue so he turned his attention back to the task. If it was difficult to keep his hand steady before it was even worse while being watched, but he managed a few more strokes before the blade nicked his cheek. 

“Alright, up, you. Outside.”

Ben blinked at him. “I can’t report to Scott unshaven.” 

“You think I’m going to have you survive an ambush only for you to slit your own throat for the sake of vanity?” He stalked out of the tent and Ben followed, feeling the wound pull in his shoulder again as he raised the tent flap.

Caleb finished off the apple and pitched it into the surrounding brush. 

“It isn’t vanity, Caleb, it’s regulation.”

“I am well aware of what is regulation. I spend enough of my time with you don’t I, _Captain?”_

Ben paused by the dregs of the fire, and watched as Caleb manhandled the stool from the shaving table outside the tent. He dropped it unceremoniously beside a fireside stump which he indicated and ordered, “Sit.” 

Ben sat.

Caleb returned from the tent with the shaving bowl and straight razor. He handed Ben the bowl and adjusted the stool, pulling it so close to Ben that their knees touched as he sat. 

“Caleb…” he started. “I am perfectly capable--” 

“You ain’t, though.” He gave Ben’s knee a brief squeeze. “And Christ Ben, that’s alright. After what youse been through just shut up, sit still, alright?” He dipped the razor into the bowl to clear the soap residue and set it on the rim of the bowl. He held Ben’s face steady, his cold hand on Ben’s left cheek, and despite his closeness to the coals Ben shivered. Caleb pulled his hands back, rubbed them together briskly and returned one to Ben’s cheek and the other to his left shoulder giving it a hardy pat before turning his full attention to rubbing the small cake of soap on Ben’s right cheek in brisk circles. 

Ben watched the way the light made shifting patterns through the leaves as the sunrise continued on in full force. The soap cake was barely anything in Caleb’s hand so Ben didn’t feel it so much as Caleb’s calloused fingers brushing his cheek over and over again. It was not an unpleasant sensation. Neither was Caleb’s other hand slowly warming on Ben’s face as he continued.

But he could feel his own face heating as well. “It is sometimes more effective to use the brush to lather.” 

Caleb’s eyebrows shot up, “Oh is it now?” he replied in mock interest. “Well I will bear that in mind.” But he did not stop lathering. When he was sufficiently soaped he picked up the straight razor and pulled the skin of his cheek taut leaning in close enough that Ben could smell him. It wasn’t just the bright, pungent smell of apple that clung to his hands. Underneath that he smelled like himself, which was to say of salt, sweat and moss- a smell that Ben could not help but associate with Setauket even when they weren’t home. So many times he had watched Caleb in deep concentration, his fingers and hands moving deftly, working rope into a knot, carving wood, maneuvering oars, folding and sealing letters, working the tallow of the candle to drip on the paper just so. There was such a strange and bewitching precision to his hands that always caught Ben off guard. Being the object of such focussed attention felt oddly intimate. Against his better judgement he allowed himself just for a moment to glance toward Caleb’s eyes and he found them, just as he always did- eyes as deep and dark as the storm-tossed sea that he’d lost him to for so many years.

And Caleb’s thoughts must have been at sea as well, because, mercifully, he didn’t meet Ben’s eyes but stayed intently focused on the task, found a rhythm to the stroke of the blade and started to hum. The words started to spill out into the empty spaces between bouts of concentration. 

_“She said while you’re sailing on the wide waves so blue, she said my young sailor I’ll be faithful to you.”_

The song was oddly calming. The birds had begun to herald the morning, the leaves rustled and the buzz of the surrounding officers emerging from tents or beginning their morning routines joined in the small chorus of sounds. Ben relaxed and nearly smiled at the sheer amount of life in the woods, in the camp, and, of course, in the man sitting so close to him, mumbling words and humming notes and holding his face so carefully in his hands.

“Turn your head, pet _...all ye young sailors and listen to me...and never leave the lass you love for to plough the salt sea.”_

It was a rousing but melancholy song. And it wasn’t often that Ben got to hear him sing songs such as this. Usually they were straight sea chaunty, keeping time with his horse or his oars, spurring him on when early mornings or late nights pulled him toward exhaustion. And more often than not if it wasn’t a chaunty it was pure filth sung in drink or jest or--when they were younger--to make Ben blush.

Caleb withdrew his hands from Ben’s face and Ben could feel the cool air hit his cheek. He watched as Caleb patted down his trousers, checking various pockets and finally came up with a handkerchief of questionable provenance and cleanliness. He sat back down, dipped it into the shaving bowl, tilted Ben’s chin up and wiped the soap away., He shifted the stump, moving his legs so that his knee was planted firmly between Ben’s legs. 

“Sorry Tall Boy. We’re gonna have to be sweethearts for a moment. Look up.”

Ben looked up and focused intently on the tree cover as Caleb began to lather his neck, still without a brush. When he’d finished lathering he picked up the blade and put his hand to the base of Ben’s collarbone, but as he leaned in Ben felt him unbalance, and pull the blade back before his hand could slip. Caleb shifted and gave Ben a bit of a strained smile of embarrassment.

There was the briefest moment of uncertain silence while they both shifted as best they could, each trying to balance around the other like dance partners who’d had a bit much to drink.

“You might...try holding the blade like this.” Ben took the blade and positioned Caleb’s first two fingers across the spine of the blade then wrapped the other fingers around the handle. Caleb looked at him skeptically. 

“It feels awkward at first but it works.” Caleb gave a slight nod of acknowledgement and leaned back in, more evenly balanced now after shifting closer. Ben tried very hard not to swallow, or move, or feel _too_ closely how _very_ close they sat. When he felt Caleb’s breath on his throat he involuntarily took a breath himself. He could feel the blade still and realized he’d better say something. As was his wont, almost without meaning to in moments such as these, he spoke of responsibility and tactic. 

“General Scott thinks we have no friends in New York.” 

Ben could feel the smirk in Caleb's voice as he said, “That’s why we ain’t going to tell him we do.” He continued before Ben could interrupt. “What Scott don’t know won’t hurt him. Now do me a favor and stop talkin’ while I’ve got a blade to your throat.”

He stayed quiet while Caleb continued and considered the best way to ascertain Abraham’s alliances. They could hardly march up to his farm and request his assistance. But if Abe was struggling as much as many of the farmers of New York perhaps he’d be in the market to trade eventually, which was where Caleb would come in. Unlike Ben Caleb could glean multitudes about a man with the most casual of conversation. He had a way of relaxing people and reading between the spaces of their words that had put him in Ben’s mind for this plan.

As soon as Caleb had wiped the soap off Ben’s neck he continued,“How long do you think you could steer your trades towards Frog’s Point? You have contacts there who will keep an eye out for Abe should he ever look to trade.” 

“Long as it takes to make contact.” Caleb rinsed the blade and picked up the cake of soap. 

“Even if we knew how many men were stationed there--even information that small might be a start.”

“Ben.”

“At the very least knowing that might help us to begin to know the scope of the Loyalist forces in the New York area.”

“Ben.” He waited a beat after Ben stopped speaking before he continued. “Now you know how much I enjoy discussin’ plans of deception. But it’s a beautiful mornin,’” he gestured grandly and at the sunrise with the soap. He clapped a hand on Ben’s good shoulder and squeezed gently before rewetting the cake of soap and beginning to lather his upper lip and chin. “And we have managed this much without any bloodshed. But I won’t be held responsible for what might occur if you can’t keep your mouth shut.” 

On a normal morning it took quite a lot to pry Ben away from scheming, but this morning a blade to his lip and a bit of sunlight in Caleb's hair made him pause. Caleb picked up the razor and positioned it in his fingers the way Ben had instructed. “Now,” he leaned in close and began the delicate work of shaving his chin, “Don’t move.”

He did not move. He watched Caleb’s eyes as they fixed intently on Ben’s face. He watched as he held his tongue to his upper lip in concentration. He listened as the same song as before simmered to a low humming that came and went and faded to silence as he finished the last few agonizingly close and careful strokes along Ben’s upper lip. When he was finished he leaned back and sighed appraising Ben’s face with a grin. Then he passed him the handkerchief and stood up in a stretch before returning the chair to the tent. Ben followed him in, pausing in front of the mirror. Caleb was fishing his gloves out of an inner pocket and putting on his hat. 

“Caleb”

He paused at the entrance to the tent.

Ben rubbed his face appreciatively. “Thank you.”

Caleb smiled. 

“Perhaps I could return the favor some time.” Caleb’s face dropped and then erupted in a whoop of hardy laughter. He clapped Ben on the back and gave him one last touch to his face, quick and teasing. 

“You wouldn’t fuckin’ dare, Tall Boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Caleb sings Pretty Nancy of Yarmouth, a traditional 18th century sea song.


End file.
